


A Consequencial Confession

by ReconstructWriter



Series: Revelations [2]
Category: The Order of the Stick
Genre: Allusions to Attempted Assisted Suicide, Description of Graphic Injury, Redcloak Badly Handling Hardcore Introspection, Redcloak's Issues, Start of Darkness spoilers, Who Still Aren't Paid Enough, Xykon Is His Own Warning, description of torture
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-31
Updated: 2020-07-31
Packaged: 2021-03-06 03:07:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,091
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25636303
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ReconstructWriter/pseuds/ReconstructWriter
Summary: Redcloak decides to put O-Chul out of his misery. It’s for his own good. Really.
Series: Revelations [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1857955
Comments: 8
Kudos: 9





	A Consequencial Confession

**Author's Note:**

> A/N: Thank you guys so much for all your comments and kudos! I'm glad the previous story hit you guys the same way it hit me. Cause I'm addicted to this theme, here's the next story in the series!

Goblins first, Redcloak swore the morning after. He had almost endangered The Plan. The Plan he had sacrificed everything for. The Plan so many others had died for. And for what? A Paladin of the Sapphire Guard. Yes, he was innocent, but Redcloak had been innocent when the Sapphire Guard had slaughtered his village full of innocents. Redcloak angrily strapped on the last of his armor and headed downstairs. So what if the only innocent of the Sapphire Guard suffered for their sins? The world’s justice was ever unfair.

“Reddy! Get your green ass down here. I made the paladin spill his guts.” 

Redcloak’s internal rant stuttered when he saw the aftermath of Xykon’s ‘fun’. The prisoner’s mangled arms wrapped tightly around his torso to stem the blood flow. It wasn’t working. By the Dark One how could a human have so much blood? A coil of intestine slid out from between his arms and he trembled as it hit the cold concrete. Every breath was a raspy, painful struggle. “If you want to save your precious source of info—” Xykon prodded a toebone at the paladin’s stomach. Redcloak could hear the prisoner’s jaw creak choking back a scream. 

“—You should get to work.”

Hiding a wince with a grimace, Redcloak cast, “cure light wounds.” The string of gut flopped like a dying fish as it tried, and failed, to mend. A pained hiss escaped the prisoner. Redcloak stifled a cringe. This only prolonged the man’s misery. “Cure critical wounds.” The organ leapt into it’s proper place as the worst of the wounds sealed, slowing the bleeding. O-Chul relaxed his arms, still covered with a dozen gashes. Xykon was in a mood. 

Better the paladin than innocent goblins. He’d appreciate that, if he cared. If he didn’t? Redcloak needn’t waste sympathy on him. “Take him downstairs,” he ordered. Every guard within earshot hastened to obey. No one wanted to stick around a bored Xykon.

Redcloak’s hardened heart was ruthlessly tested. Without vengeance to sate with the paladin’s blood and pain, every blood-gurgling gasp and bitten back sound tugged at the tiny nerve of his conscience as they marched down, deep into the bowels of the palace. The long, forced trudge while wounded was yet another subtle misery to heap on his prisoner. By the time he opened the doors to the torture chamber—with a spell only he could cast, another precaution—O-Chul’s stumbled against the wall. He pushed himself off, leaving a bloody smear from re-opened wounds. 

The guards hauled the prisoner into the chamber, bristling with every manner of torture device in creation and history. “Thank you gentlemen. Cuff him to the rack and you’re dismissed. I doubt I’ll need more assistance with him today.”

With an echoing slam of the heavy door, he was alone once more with the human. O-Chul collapsed on the torture device, cuffed hand and foot, bleeding sluggishly, strength drained, brutally wounded chest still heaving with exertion from Xykon’s 'fun'. 

Had any of his people gone through such misery? The prisoner still lived but what mercy was that? Enduring a torturous hell as Xykon’s toy (and yours). Months of horror. Every moment a torment. But what could Redcloak do? His healing spell hours before had only prolonged the man’s suffering. Without it, he might have finally succumbed to Xykon’s torture and been free. “You’re not running a catch and release program,” he muttered. He couldn’t let the prisoner go. The last act of kindness had nearly cost The Plan. Freedom for the paladin risked the lives of all his people. 

Redcloak had but one mercy to give now.

He took hold of the largest scalpel from a rack of similar tools, dull light glinting off the blade. It wasn’t much, but the prisoner was already so gravely wounded. Tied down. It would be enough. He took care to sharpen the blade first. 

The prisoner’s eyes flicked from the stone scraping against steel to the face of it’s wielder. Each breath escaped in a rattle, weak and raw. The stench of blood permeated the room. Day after day. Pain after pain. Why hadn’t the stupid paladin escaped when he had the chance? Redcloak had handed him a chance for freedom on his knees. “You didn’t have to stay,” he snarled, punctuated by the rasp of sharpening blade. “I gave you the perfect chance to escape on a silver platter.”

“Would you prefer strangulation by your Lich’s phylactery?”

“Don’t be ridiculous.” Another scrape, “But that was your only chance to escape.”

“My freedom is not worth your life.” 

The whetstone jumped from Redcloak’s fumbling fingers. It’s clatter broke the sudden silence. The words felt like another needle to the tiny larva of his conscience and he had no vengeful fire to burn the pain. Didn’t matter. The blade was ready. Time to stop the torture. Redcloak straightened, composure settled. “This is the only mercy I can give.” He pressed one hand to the prisoner’s chin, lifting the head up to expose his throat. 

O-Chul yanked his head out of Redcloak’s grasp with an easy twist of his neck. “I would prefer to live.”

“Live?” Redcloak gaped. “I know that aura of courage addled your mind but this—” One claw gestured to the room, encompassing the myriad of blades, cuffs, cranks, stakes, and pits lined up, pristinely awaiting a new chance to draw blood, “—is not living. Your existence is a chew toy for Xykon’s amusement. Every moment of your life is suffering. Your only hope is for him to cook up a monstrosity powerful enough to kill you.”

“I am of more use in life than death,” O-Chul said.

“As a distraction for Xykon? Yes. At least he’s not killing goblins. Or I suppose you only care about the other humans he’d torture in your place.” 

“Both are worthy goals to live for, however inadequate I have fulfilled them.” Redcloak rolled his eyes. “Is this,” O-Chul tried to encompass a lifetime of choices in a gesture with one cuffed hand, “the right thing for you to do?”

“Right? Don’t talk to me about right Paladin. My people were wronged by the gods from the moment of our creation. Wronged a million times over by you so-called ‘good’ races. If I must commit a few more wrongs to make some right for those slaughtered by the Sapphire Guard, I will.”

“How many?” the paladin asked. “How many did my organization murder?”

Redcloak lowered his head. “I have a stack of Sapphire Guard reports. Each one details a slaughtered town, village or city.”

The paladin closed his eyes, offering a prayer to the twelve gods who had created goblins as cleric fodder “Prayers to your gods serve nothing,” he snapped. “My brother took a Paladin’s katana to the eye and he,” Redcloak swallowed, “He and I were the only survivors. Butchered by the precious followers of your twelve gods.”

“He is fortunate then, to have you as a brother.”

Redcloak’s vision blurred. For a moment, he was back outside Dorukan’s dungeon, staring at the crumpled form of his younger brother. So old, so defeated.

(“Goodbye…Redcloak.”)

Not brother. Not his real name. Redcloak. His…alias. The alias of Xykon’s cleric.

(“I wanted to see if you would kill him for me.”)

Bile rose in his throat, Xykon’s words made more painful still in the face of O-Chul’s ignorant compliment. More’s a pity, the paladin was no fool. “Oh,” another moment of silence. Maybe another prayer, “I hope he found in the afterlife what was denied to him in life.”

(A brother who didn’t betray him)

“He died for The Plan. That is why I must. He died for it. If I give up, then…then he will have died for nothing.”

(You will have murdered him for less than nothing)

O-Chul asked, very quietly, “Is that what your brother wanted?” 

Redcloak’s throat closed up. His mind flailed but found no comfort, no justification, nothing but cold, hard, truth. “That is not…I am supposed to be…” He clung to the crank of the rack as his only scrap of support. “I-I had…” He couldn’t finish. The words tasted of lies. 

(“He’ll remember that you killed him to protect me, and he’ll know you for what you are: my willing slave…”)

O-Chul’s voice broke through Redcloak’s memories. “How would your brother best love to be honored?”

Not like this. He would have wanted Xykon destroyed. Had risked his life to do so. Vengeance against the monster who had burned down his village (a budding goblin utopia built by goblin hands). The bastard who had watched the murder of his newfound family and laughed. 

Working with the lich was always disgusting, but Redcloak could console himself with his subtle control over his so-called master, his conviction that one day, this would all be worth it and, when even that failed, fantasies of the lich’s destruction. He would make it slow. Make Xykon understand how badly he was played from the start. He would destroy that bony body, bit by bit, piece by piece. He would make Xykon watch. He would begin with the phylactery. Let the lich stew in the truth as he was slowly destroyed that this end would be forever. 

(You’ll still be alone).

For over thirty years he had been patient. Now, another second, even under the facile of service, felt unbearable. Could he leave this room and face the lich without revealing himself? Could he hide his desire to utterly damn Xykon to the deepest pits of torturous hell for all eternity?

(“I am looking for allies, not prisoners.”) 

But The Plan. The Plan. The Plan! He could not give it all up. All the sacrifices. All the deaths, they would become his fault.

(They’re already your fault) (You’re too chickenshit) (You had a choice) (What would your brother…)

“Shut up,” He forced back the tears. Xykon’s words laid him bare as the day his brother…but the paladin’s words hurt worse, like a branding iron to stop a bleeding wound. “Shut up,” he sealed the paladin’s mouth shut with magical thread. “The Plan—” He shoved his weight against the crank he clung to. “—Must continue.”

Even with his mouth stitched together, the paladin still screamed.

Redcloak’s prisoner lay limp and exhausted, wounds torn anew, arm and leg joints forced out of their sockets with sickening cracks to lay limp against hard wood. His dark beard stained with blood where thread had magically bound his lips, only to be torn free in agony. The tiny thread of his conscience squirmed. The stitches had been unnecessary. “I…” what could he do. He’d offered a quick, merciful end only to be rejected? With a gesture he dispelled the threads. “I could still,” he picked up the blade. “You can’t possibly want to live like this?”

“It is preferable…to dying…like this.”

“The torture will continue. Xykon…I can’t defend you from him. I can’t risk the plan for you. I won’t risk goblin lives for you.” He straightened. “Heal.”

“Thank you.”

“Hmph, don’t thank me. You’d be better off dead,” raising his voice, he called, “Guards.”

Hauling the paladin back up the staircase was easier with him healed, both for the guards and for Redcloak's budding conscience. Xykon fortunately hadn't waited around. Unfortunately that meant he was being someone else's problem. The room was empty once more, except...

“Mr. Stiffly! You’re back!” The Monster in the Darkness pushed something out from under its box. “I saved the game, it’s your move.”

A board game, of course. He was surprised the monster managed to talk a paladin into playing with him. One more torture the damnable honor-deluded human was saving them from. He glanced at the prisoner, grappled by two of the strongest guards. “Really?”

“Yes.” A smile crossed grizzled features, “It would have been rude to abandon him.”

“Ugh, put him back,” he instructed, wincing at the clang of flesh against steel. But couldn’t very well admonish the guards to be gentle. “Back to your posts.”

“Would you like to join us?” O-Chul asked softly, once the guards were outside.

“Oh! Please! Please! Please! Games are always funner with another friend!”

Redcloak looked back. Both the monster and the paladin faced him, the former annoyingly degrading into pleas involving more elaborate confectionery desserts. The latter’s reaction was far more shocking. Despite all the torture, including that which ended only moments ago, O-Chul’s scarred face looked inviting.

“Please?” O-Chul asked.

Redcloak turned away, “Don’t be ridiculous,” and left.

**Author's Note:**

> A/N: Last time Redcloak learned about O-Chul’s past. Now it’s O-Chul’s turn to learn about Redcloak’s. Sort of. Reddy's not the type to spill his beans and O-Chul doesn’t have a handy, dandy scrying spell to magic his problems away. Still, between some lucky (or very unlucky) comments and his wisdom and smarts, O-Chul has a broad picture of what happened to (and between) Redcloak and Right-Eye.


End file.
